A portrait of Harrison Birtwistle

Along with fellow Lancastrian composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Harrison Birtwistle celebrates his 80th birthday this year and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is delighted to once again mark the occasion in 2014 with a concert at The BBC Proms.

The group’s relationship with Birtwistle’s music is a long one, and here we perform three of the composer’s classic early works. Each explores the spatial dramatisation of music, playing aural games with the audience and exposing them to intriguing and unfamiliar textures, while never neglecting the ever-unfolding melody that is at the core of all Birtwistle’s music.